The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - Episode 16 Discussion / Poll [2009 added ep. 6]

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Sute443

Would you accept that although they did not technically lie, they were purposefully attempting to lead fans of the novels to a false conclusion?

This is sort of stating the obvious, really. This whole re-airing has been about confounding/misleading/puzzling the audience (especially those who have read the novels) by: not calling this a second season, not having next episode previews, not disclosing if new episodes will even exist or how many there would be, not sending DVD solicitations until it obviously won't spoil anything, doing all these repeats of Endless Eight, etc. etc. etc. Basically, it took all the theories that novel-readers kept throwing out there (and built up into these massive expectations), and turned them on their head.

It's pretty obvious that they will animate the future novels at some point, but the name of the game is to keep people guessing. Using that image was just part of the mystery they were trying to perpetuate. If they told us the truth, we wouldn't be surprised, and this is all about surprises.

[kalbron]

If I put up a sign which has someone holding oodles of money with the words "WIN! WIN! WIN!" behind them. However it also says on the sign you must do something say... watch program X. Then it turns out that, no, you can't win that, but I never said anything other than putting the sign up and you drew your own conclusions. However because you watched program X I am now better off.

Would you felt you had been lied to or not? After all, I never said you would win anything in particular and neither did the sign.

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by kalbron

Would you felt you had been lied to or not? After all, I never said you would win anything in particular and neither did the sign.

This is known in many circles as "lawyerspeak".

The trick is to never assume or expect anything except what is actually and literally said.

[Ithekro]

The only time I've seen an episode that the 10s mattered was CLANNAD AS ep. 18. Basically because pretty much everyone voted it a 10, some 9s, 8s, and 7s, and then nothing until a few 1s....that says a lot when there is nothing in the middle and a huge weight at the top. While these Haruhi episodes are getting a huge number at the bottom, they have votes scattered across the spectrum, meaning that it can be bad or good depending on point of view. That one episode of CLANNAD...only the very few will dislike it.

[CrowKenobi]

I'm disappointed! Only 200+ posts since last night...

At least the crankiness has mellowed out some...

[spawnofthejudge]

Originally Posted by kalbron

Erm. Isn't purposefully misleading people for material gain the same as lying? Or rather fraud, which is simply a more serious form of lying.

Have they made any money on this yet?... No. They've lost money so far (as it costs money to air anime, IIRC). Until they start selling DVDs, at which point we'll know more about what we're getting, they haven't made a cent off of these shenanigans.

So... no. We get to see it before we can spend our money on it. And maybe fans will send the message of not buying some of the DVDs. I doubt it, but it remains to be seen.

[Toonleap]

Sorry for the late post. I had to go to a funeral at 11:00am, same time as Haruhi TV at 25:00am
Here are my two cents.

Spoiler for My two cents on Haruhi 16:

http://www.cartoonleap.com/2009/07/1...funeral-later/

Haruhi in theory should end next week.

[mokuseimaru]

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

"Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya"?

That's a subjective assumption based on preexisting knowledge, however. Nowhere in that article did they actually bring up that picture and discuss it.

I know they're fucking with us, I just object to people saying that they're lying. Not the same thing.

From a semiotic standpoint, I believe that the intended meaning was in fact "We are animating The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya". If that was not the case, then they at least misrepresented their intentions.

If one looks at the context, I don't think you can dispute that was the intended meaning of this image. They used an image of Haruhi in an outfit which she only appears in in that novel just as the new season was beginning; and given what had and had not been animated yet, it was perfectly reasonable for us to infer that this image meant "Disappearance" was being animated in the near future. Even if the image did not explicitly denote the message "We are animating the Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya", in context it did strongly connote "We are animating the Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya" So if we don't see "Disappearance" before another hiatus, they were at the very least being deceitful.

Originally Posted by spawnofthejudge

Have they made any money on this yet?... No. They've lost money so far (as it costs money to air anime, IIRC). Until they start selling DVDs, at which point we'll know more about what we're getting, they haven't made a cent off of these shenanigans.

So... no. We get to see it before we can spend our money on it. And maybe fans will send the message of not buying some of the DVDs. I doubt it, but it remains to be seen.

They have. As I've mentioned before, Kadokawa has made over 10 million dollars off of ads on various Haruhi videos on YouTube.

[siber222000]

well u know what, now i watch this without expectation lol. i'll just leave it up to the next week if there is anything new anymore lol.

[Fenrir_valindri]

Assuming of course, that they don't animate Disappearance, but we can't confirm that they won't anymore then we can confirm next week will be the end of Endless Eight.

[baltakatei]

*Ahem*

Even though I have seen this episode's plot again and again, I have quite a few things that stick out to me.

First of all, after just 10 minutes of watching, I realize the animation is top notch. I especially love seeing all background characters animated as if they might join the plot if the plot required it.

In addition, I get the feeling that this latest episode used the same action storyboards as others did. Koizumi's ridiculous "esper" twirl to catch his cicadas with a backhanded grip on his net was the same in a previous iteration... with the exception that he looked like an idiot in the park.

While the animation is exceptionally well-made, the music can be unfittingly upbeat and gaudy.

And what's with Kyon's voice as he answers Mikuru's late-night call? Is his VA getting tired of repeating the same lines every day he goes into work this week? Kyon and Koizumi warding off nampa-ing youths was a nice touch. Not to mention Koizumi's excessive hand-gestures. I'm waiting for him to slide his finger down his nose like he did at the start of the season.

Anyway, the added minutes of the repeating Kyon's angst to ask Haruhi something to break the cycle plus the 30 seconds of watching the clock tick threw my timing off. I thought for sure this episode would have a few extra minutes to include a conclusion.

As a side-note, I personally believe the repetitions of Kyon's failed attempts to end the cycle by calling out Haruhi were indeed other iterations. They might as well have been. The only thing that indicates otherwise is the lack of variation of clothes and other minute differences that should have crept up between each cycle (if we take the different directors' attempts at animating each cycle that we have watched in the previous 4 episodes). If the previous Endless Eight animation attempts are ignored, then the Kyon's repeated failed attempts are an excellent touch, in my opinion.

Overall, besides some overly-chipper BG music where it shouldn't be (ex: Asahina's sad explanation of being unable to return to the future), the rest of this episode earns my full approval. The animation quality is what marks this episode above the others. I certainly would like to know exactly how many more hours the animation team had to work on this episode than on the others. Anyone else have any idea?

[spawnofthejudge]

Originally Posted by mokuseimaru

They have. As I've mentioned before, Kadokawa has made over 10 million dollars off of ads for Haruhi videos on YouTube.

What? (Also: Where and Source?) All the ad money on YT goes to Google. You know. Those nice people who own the site.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Fenrir_valindri

Assuming of course, that they don't animate Disappearance, but we can't confirm that they won't anymore then we can confirm next week will be the end of Endless Eight.

Exactly. All of this "I've been mislead" talk is because people are worrying too much about the episode count and "oh no, they're running out of time!", probably because they've had to wait so long since the first season. I'm not saying that isn't understandable, but at least recognize that one of the take-aways of this Endless Eight exercise is that people need to relinquish their sense of control and just let the show do what it wants, because you can't change it anyway. If this new airing ends and there's no Second Season/Disappearance in sight, then maybe you were mislead. But if this new broadcast is a prelude to a second season to come a bit later, then you just need to wait a bit longer (and you can express your disapproval of this set of episodes by not buying them). At this point, the only thing you've been "defrauded" of is, arguably, a few hours of your life. They don't "owe you" for that.

Originally Posted by spawnofthejudge

What? (Also: Where and Source?) All the ad money on YT goes to Google. You know. Those nice people who own the site.

The figure itself is clearly exaggerated (there's no way they made even 1 million, let alone 10), but Google/YouTube does do this sort of profit sharing with copyright owners, including with Kadokawa. (source)

Edit: Found the source for the other and it's 10 million Yen, which is a little over $100,000 a month. That's more like it. And it's on all of their properties, not just Haruhi.

[Sute443]

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

Who said they were misleading us at all?

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

transitive verb
: to lead in a wrong direction or into a mistaken action or belief often by deliberate deceit
intransitive verb
: to lead astray : give a wrong impression

Unless you meant in the "who says they won't animate Disappearance" sense, in which case the future may at some point wish to speak to this post.

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

In any case, since spring, KyoAni has pretty much turned into a joke, and Haruhi with it. That's the real consequence here, and the real reason why I'm pissed

Same here.

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

It's pretty obvious that they will animate the future novels at some point, but the name of the game is to keep people guessing. Using that image was just part of the mystery they were trying to perpetuate. If they told us the truth, we wouldn't be surprised, and this is all about surprises.

Yeah, at this point it has become clear that they care about surprises. Pleasing fans or sponsors? Not so much. It doesn't make much sense to take something that would already sell really well and then stomp on it for the sake of surprise when the goal is making money.

And while it is a near certainty that they plan to animate more volumes in the future, there is no telling how long that will take.

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

The trick is to never assume or expect anything except what is actually and literally said.

That is an intelligent thing to do, and that is truly unfortunate.

Of course, they could still take one of the many suggestions on how to alleviate the anger of the base. I just don't expect them to.

In hindsight, I'm actually a little surprised that we were all so surprised. Considering how Kadokawa dicked around with the fanbase these past few years, why didn't we think they'd screw with us now? Oh, wait, we did. We just didn't think they'd do it like this.

[mokuseimaru]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

It's pretty obvious that they will animate the future novels at some point, but the name of the game is to keep people guessing. Using that image was just part of the mystery they were trying to perpetuate. If they told us the truth, we wouldn't be surprised, and this is all about surprises.

I've got to say, I haven't been surprised by this since I said, "Huh, they're doing three episodes instead of two. I guess that could work". It's not a mystery or a novelty anymore, it's just an annoyance meant to keep the level of hype high by making people angry. Like I said before, if I thought they really were doing this just to be clever and unpredictable, even if I thought it failed as art I could respect their efforts. But this isn't even failed art: it's cynical capitalism in the guise of art.

As for your other point, if Haruhi was a show like Bleach or Naruto (I mean in terms of the length of the series) I would be much more open even to something as ridiculous as this, if only because I knew that eventually the canon material would be aired. But Haruhi had only had 14 episodes before this season and then went on a three year hiatus. While I admit that "Disappearance" will probably be animated eventually, I'm not as optimistic about it being animated in the near future.

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Edit: Found the source for the other and it's 10 million Yen, which is a little over $100,000 a month. That's more like it. And it's on all of their properties, not just Haruhi.

So yeah, the Kadokawa youtube channel makes 100,000 bucks a month. Not bad at all, but I don't exactly think it'll make up for failed DVD sales...

Originally Posted by Sute443

Of course, they could still take one of the many suggestions on how to alleviate the anger of the base. I just don't expect them to.

At this point, why not screw with the fan expectations that they won't alleviate our anger by alleviating our anger?

But maybe they saw that line of thinking coming, and so will screw with our expectations that they're going to alleviate our anger by alleviating our anger by not alleviating our anger.

Or maybe they saw that coming too, and are going to further screw with the expectation that they're going to alleviate our anger by alleviating our anger by not alleviating our anger by alleviating our anger.

Or maybe *dies of iocane poisoning*

[Ithekro]

Or maybe they'll do something unexpected that we do want, but couldn't hope to ask for.

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Or maybe they'll do something unexpected that we do want, but couldn't hope to ask for.

Or maybe because you said that they'll do something we were expecting that we'd all hate.

Or maybe they'll no I'm not doing this again it's only funny once.

[mokuseimaru]

Originally Posted by spawnofthejudge

What? (Also: Where and Source?) All the ad money on YT goes to Google. You know. Those nice people who own the site.

Ah, I made a little error. It's actually 10 million yen, but that's what they make per month. Which is 100,000 dollars or so each month is still quite a lot. Here is the link: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news...y-from-youtube

EDIT: I see someone beat me to it. Very sorry---I wasn't trying to be deceitful there, just a something I misremembered. But in any case, it does mean that they profit by people's viewership, even ours.

[spawnofthejudge]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

The figure itself is clearly exaggerated (there's no way they made even 1 million, let alone 10), but Google/YouTube does do this sort of profit sharing with copyright owners, including with Kadokawa. (source)

Edit: Found the source for the other and it's 10 million Yen, which is a little over $100,000 a month. That's more like it. And it's on all of their properties, not just Haruhi.

Okay, that makes sense (thank you for sources). Even then, the fans aren't being defrauded; the money's coming from sponsors, who don't care what they're advertising on, as long as it's seen.

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

*dies of iocane poisoning*

You forgot to build an immunity didn't you?

Originally Posted by mokuseimaru

Ah, I made a little error. It's actually 10 million yen, but that's what they make per month. Which is 100,000 dollars or so each month is still quite a lot. Here is the link: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news...y-from-youtube .

Still, not fraud. No fan has paid money for these shenanigans. Only sponsors have, and they weren't ever lied to.